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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23232163">or, there and back again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/motorcyclefl1p/pseuds/motorcyclefl1p'>motorcyclefl1p</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Casual Ageism, Casual Racism, Fade to Black, Horrific Travesties at Attempting a Nu Yawk Accent, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Bottom!Bucky, Implied Suicidal Ideation or He's Just Really Depressed Because C'mon, M/M, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Canon Fix-It</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:41:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,780</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23232163</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/motorcyclefl1p/pseuds/motorcyclefl1p</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Bucky had been through a lot in his life; he’d been shot, stabbed, bled, broken, bitten, beaten, and worse. He’d been cut up, cut into, shocked, wiped, frozen, thawed.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>But this.  Wow.  This was new.</i></p><p> </p><p>Bucky tries to cope with Steve's unexpected return.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>111</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>or, there and back again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t.  He couldn’t move.  Couldn’t accept it.<br/>
<br/>
Bucky stood rooted to the spot, staring helplessly.<br/>
<br/>
He had been through a lot in his life, he knew; he’d been shot, stabbed, bled, broken, bitten, beaten, and worse. He’d been cut up, cut into, shocked, wiped, frozen, and thawed, which had felt each time, as far as he unpleasantly remembered, infinitely worse than being frozen in the first place.  More times than he cared to count his brain had whited out with agony and all that had been left was the vague, faraway despair of cursing the day he’d been born, longing, weeping if he’d still had tears, for death.  Hell, he’d even actually <i>been</i> dead, as it turned out, for five whole fuckin’ years.  The irony in dying just when he might possibly have been starting to enjoy some peace and quiet again in his long, misbegotten lifespan made its own special kind of hollow, ugly ache in his chest whenever he came to think about it.</p><p>But this.  Wow.  This was new.  He stared at the faraway figure on the bench conversing quietly with Sam, watched the sunshine through the windblown trees flit on and off those thin shoulders in that steely, stalwart set he’d know anywhere and anywhen, and he felt a hot, tight, bitter clench in his chest and throat that seemed to drain the rest of his body of all energy and turned every shaky breath to shreds.  He supposed he was only still standing from some kind of inertia, too shocked even to crumble.</p><p>Bucky had felt something like this pain too, last night, when Steve carefully told him he might not come back, asked Bucky not to tell the others.  Something had begun to burn in Bucky then, not the sweet warm secret light he’d used to feel whenever Steve visited him in Wakanda, but something acid and awful, gnawing under his bones with small but lightning-sharp teeth.  But Bucky had swallowed it down, smiled over it, because Steve had needed him to.  Had looked up at him almost shyly, blue eyes lined with a cold tiredness Bucky had never seen in Steve before, and begged without words for approval, permission, forgiveness.  And Bucky hadn’t said no to Steve in a hundred years and he hadn’t been about to start then.</p><p>Hey, Steve had just said he “might” not come back.  There was still hope.  Bucky knew all about clinging to hope.</p><p>He’d thought he’d known all about disappointment, too.</p><p>Apparently Steve was old now, lifetimes now behind him, lifetimes without Bucky.  And Bucky knew all about that, didn’t he, living lifetimes all by oneself.  He couldn’t begrudge Steve that.  Deep down past the gaping ache in his heart he hoped Steve had had a great time—not like how Bucky had ground on, unseeing, unfeeling, unwilling, surviving pain and death, his own and others’.  Bucky knew about staying alive even when every part of him inside screamed against it.  So he shuddered a breath into his lungs, managed a numb nod when Sam glanced his way, fingers poised on Steve’s shield.  Bucky even put on a smile, for Steve’s sake, for Sam’s sake.  His face felt stiff and heavy in its rictus.</p><p>Sam and Steve were shaking hands, the sun gleamed gold off a pale wrinkled finger, the wind changed in the trees; and the gun was cold in Bucky’s hand, safety turned off before he could even say why, he was forcing his feet to move while his mind swam in confusion, he opened his mouth to warn Sam, of what he didn’t even <i>know—</i></p><p>
  <i>“Bucky no!”</i>
</p><p>And that was Steve’s voice, warm and young and strong as ever, ringing in Bucky’s ears from completely the wrong direction.  As Bucky whipped his head around in shock he had the vague sense that Sam was doing exactly the same thing several paces behind him.</p><p>Steve stood in the grass, pale with horror, his quantum suit scuffed and torn and gray.  Bucky stood blinking, drinking Steve in with not quite believing eyes for the space of a breath before he, too, tore his gaze away to look back the way Steve was gaping.</p><p>Sam was groaning and stretching carefully back to his full height.  He had good reflexes for a non-enhanced, thought Bucky muddily, but might have pulled something when he’d lunged to cover Steve with the shield, Steve who was now crouching down on the bench holding out trembling hands—</p><p>But no, Steve was right behind Bucky now, Steve whom Bucky would know anywhere by that honest open face of his, that upright stance, that heat and smell radiating through that tattered suit.  Bucky had recognized him in Azzano, Bucky knew him now.  He kept his gun up.</p><p>“I’m fine!” graveled out a hoarse feminine voice with an odd Cockney accent.  “I’m fine, Steve, oh thank God you’re back safe.”</p><p>Sam let out a most unheroic shriek and fell flat on his butt, almost decapitating himself with the shield, and scrabbled frantically backward through the grass from the monstrous green-headed pointy-eared creature in a blue-checked shirt and khaki jacket now sitting on the bench, both hands still meekly raised in the air.</p><p>“Don’t shoot,” Steve panted belatedly, clapping a hand onto Bucky’s shoulder.  “It’s a Skrull.  She’s a friend of mine.  I asked her to do me a favor.”</p><p>As Bucky stared, the creature gave a sheepish smile and a little wave.</p><p>“What the hell is a Skrull?” Bucky croaked.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“It was the smell,” said Bucky, picking at his chowder.</p><p>Yens’n looked extremely offended.  “Excuse you.”</p><p>“Well, yeah,” said Sam, swiping a handful of Steve’s fries over his burger-muffled yelp of protest.  Across the table, Bucky was apologizing to Yens’n, because that was still no way to talk to a lady.  “But I thought that was, y’know, old white dude smell.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Bucky said again to Yens’n, on whom rapidly purpling indignation was not a good look.  “Our colleague here was raised in a barn, like a real honest-to-God barn.”</p><p>“It was a contingency plan,” explained Steve over his second strawberry milkshake of the evening, after Yens’n had left the diner with Carol and a couple of other Skrulls to distract herself from her wounded feelings.  “I’ll tell you about it later, but I ran into some complications, and I felt I had to make sure to pass the shield on if I couldn’t make it back.”  He frowned at Bucky.  “I didn’t expect you to try to <i>shoot</i> her.”</p><p>“But I <i>didn’t.”</i>  Bucky glanced over to Sam for support, but Sam was busy with his banana split.  He may still have been sore about that “raised in a barn” jibe.  “Anyway Captain America Junior over here had her covered.”</p><p>Sam scowled.  “‘Junior’?  Really?”</p><p>“Well he’s still older than you,” reasoned Bucky.</p><p><i>“Nobody’s</i> older than him now,” Sam pointed out.</p><p>Bucky nodded thoughtfully.  “That’s true.”</p><p>“She’s one of the best, you know,” interrupted Steve, refusing to let his OG Captain America is Disappointed in You train of thought get completely derailed by its unappreciative audience.  “That’s why I asked her to do it.  She’s a trooper, but I think you really hurt her feelings today, you jerk.”</p><p>Bucky threw up his hands.  “Not her fault she couldn’t get your stank right, punk.”</p><p>Sam wrinkled his nose, tossing his spoon aside.  “And the Winter Soldier knowing Captain America’s <i>stank</i> is my cue to say good night.”  He turned to Steve, who stood up from the table to give him a proper hug.  They both ignored how Bucky promptly began to eat Sam’s half-finished ice cream: Waste not, want not.  “Talk again tomorrow?”</p><p>“Yeah, Sam.  Get some rest.”  Steve clapped Sam on the back, pulled back to beam at him, pretended not to see the tears in his eyes.  “It’s been a long day.”</p><p>“Especially for you, man.”  Sam turned to leave with a last squeeze on Steve’s arm, a wave in Bucky’s direction.  “Take it easy, Barnes.”</p><p>“Smell you later, Sam,” said Bucky.</p><p>“You think you’re so funny.”  And Steve sat back down to savor the rest of his milkshake.  “Damn, this place really <i>has</i> made these things the same exact way for fifty years.”</p><p>Bucky just grinned at him, scraping up the last of Sam’s banana split.  “’Cause you’d know, right?”</p><p>They paid their check, tipping generously as usual, and stepped outside into the cool night.  Bucky caught Steve sniffing quietly, suspiciously, at himself.</p><p>“It’s your deodorant, I think,” Bucky said, with his most shit-eating smile.  “On top of Erskine’s formula.  I guess there’s only so much you can shapeshift into.”</p><p>“I’m just glad you didn’t actually end up shooting her dead, Buck.”  Steve stuck his hands in his pockets, shoved playfully past Bucky.  Bucky hurried to elbow him back.</p><p><i>“Sam</i> should be glad he never had to sweat out a New York summer with you, ya disgusting schlub—”</p><p>An old lady paused in her dog-walking to glare at them over the rims of her spectacles.  “Ma’am,” Steve mumbled politely, clamping a firm hand on the back of Bucky’s neck because Bucky was still trying to trip him.</p><p>Steve didn’t let go as they passed the stairs for the subway and, by wordless agreement, kept on walking, taking the long route to Steve’s apartment where Bucky had the guest room.  Bucky pretended to gaze up at the star-flecked sky so that he could lean surreptitiously into the warm, familiar weight of Steve’s hand at his nape.</p><p>“So Captain America is dead, huh.”  Bucky’s low voice barely stirred the hush of a deserted street.  “Long live Captain America.”</p><p>“Something like that.”  A half-smile played at Steve’s mouth.</p><p>“I really thought you weren’t coming back.”  Just saying the words out loud seemed to reignite that hot, choking pain in Bucky’s chest.  He kept walking.</p><p>“Y’know, so did I.”</p><p>Steve dropped his hand to Bucky’s shoulder.  It was almost like old times, and Bucky remembered <i>those.</i>  Steve touching him constantly—once he’d finally become tall enough to reach—had been one of his few, unspeakable comforts during the war.  The heat in Bucky’s heart glowed quietly now, reminding him of long drowsy Wakandan afternoons by the lake.</p><p>He studied Steve out the corner of his eye.  Maybe it was just the long hot shower, the clean civvies after too long in that stuffy suit, the enormous meal he’d just had at one of his favorite diners, but Steve seemed much more relaxed than he’d been before the timejump, much less on edge.</p><p>“I went and saw Peggy again,” said Steve at last.  This time he was the one looking up at the moon.  “I finally got to make good on that dance.”</p><p>Bucky clenched his metal fist, hidden in his pocket.  “That’s great, Steve.  I know you really wanted that.”</p><p>The half-smile was back, this time like the weight of five years twisting Steve’s mouth.  “She had a great life, Buck.  I saw her family photos once.  She had like a dozen grandkids by the time she passed.  Great-grandkids, too.  And for a while there, after I saw her when Tony and I went back, all I could think of was the life I thought I coulda had too.”  Steve looked down, scuffed his shoe on the sidewalk like he was still nineteen years old and a hundred pounds soaking wet.  “But this time when I went back, I was right there, I had her in my arms, and I knew I was just kidding myself.”</p><p>The tips of Steve’s ears were telltale-red as he exhaled a laugh.</p><p>“Fact is, I <i>couldn’t</i> have had that kinda life then.  Even if I <i>was</i> willing to screw up a whole universe’s worth of timelines.  Which, frankly, I’m not.”</p><p>They were coming up to their stoop now.  Steve’s hand fell to Bucky’s metal elbow, hidden in his jacket sleeve.  Bucky couldn’t bring himself to look.</p><p>“I couldn’t admit it to myself til right then and there, til it was staring me in the face.  Nat woulda laughed her head off.  Y’know, sometimes she’d give me this look, like it just blew her mind how monumentally dumb I could be all the times I wasn’t history’s greatest fucking tactician.”  Steve chuckled, wet and low in his throat.  Bucky would have aired his vehement and gleeful agreement, but he didn’t quite trust his own voice to hold steady at the moment.</p><p>Steve went up the steps first, Bucky trailing silently behind.  It might have been any night in Brooklyn, 1937, just two exhausted boys coming home together from another day of work.  Bucky kept his head low, glanced impatiently up and down the empty street as Steve seemed to take an awfully long time sorting out his keys.</p><p>“But I knew—I just wouldn’t <i>have</i> the life I wanted by going back to her,” Steve was saying slowly.  Bucky found himself oddly breathless.  “It’s <i>now.  Here.</i>  This future—this <i>present.</i>  Not going back, but going forward.”  Steve took a deep breath, cleared his throat.  “With you.”</p><p>Steve’s eyes were very blue; he reached out for a moment before seeming to think better of it and snatching his hand back, but Bucky was too stunned to move or speak.  It had been a long day.  Maybe he’d been hearing things.  Maybe Sam put something in that damn banana split.</p><p>“If you’ll, y’know.”  Steve stared down at the floor.  He’d given up any pretense of fiddling with his keys and just shoved his hands into his pockets.  “Have me.”</p><p>The silence crawled as Bucky waited tensely for himself to wake up.</p><p>“I know it’s sudden”—Steve was babbling now, and it had been so incredibly <i>long</i> since he’d been anything less than inexorably certain about an idea of his that Bucky felt even more disoriented—“and it’s totally out of nowhere, and so much of that is my fault, and you <i>know,</i> Bucky, you <i>know</i> I have so many regrets when it comes to you.  You didn’t see me right after you were gone.”  He gave a laugh, short and bitter.  Bucky swallowed against the knot in his throat.  “And I don’t even know if I stand any kind of chance with you.  <i>Any</i> kind of chance.  But...”</p><p>But Steve, Bucky knew, would never give up just because he wasn’t sure to win.  Steve hadn’t given up as a scrawny five-year-old shielding a maltreated cat all by himself from four bigger boys.  He wasn’t going to give up now.  Bucky steeled himself against the full, blazing force of the earnest light in Steve’s eyes, now pinning him in place as surely as any hammer forged in a dying star.</p><p>“But I loved you before I ever even knew Peggy walked the earth, and I loved you after I got out of the ice and you were still dead, and I loved you for five years when I thought you were gone forever, and I love you now.  And I was stupid, and scared shitless, when you came back and all I could think of was how much I still loved you and I didn’t know what to do.  But I do.  Y’know.  Love you.”</p><p>Steve stopped then, face on fire.  “You don’t have to say anything.  Or do anything.”  He turned away, keys at last materializing in his hand.  “I just wanted you to know, is all.”</p><p>Finally remembering to breathe as his lungs burned, Bucky dazedly concluded he was not, in fact, just trapped in an elaborate dream.  Steve stilled instantly when Bucky laid metal fingers carefully on his arm, wide blue eyes flashing over to storm-gray ones.</p><p>“You said.  ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’”  Bucky frowned at the confusion on Steve’s face.  “Before the timejump.  I said ‘I’m gonna miss you, buddy’ and you just said ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’”  Steve looked like he might cry and Bucky had found that kind of shit hard enough to deal with eighty years ago, so he just watched himself idly stroke his thumb across Steve’s arm.  “You’re such an asshole.”</p><p>Steve actually did cry then, a single tear spilling free down his cheek.  Bucky thumbed it away, then—unable to stop himself—touched the corner of Steve’s mouth as it just barely curved into a smile, unsure but hopeful.  Still not giving up.</p><p>“But I’m <i>your</i> asshole,” Steve whispered, starting to grin.  Bucky rolled his eyes.</p><p>“Well don’t just say things you’re gonna regret later, ya moron,” and then Bucky kissed him, standing right there outside their door in the glare of the Brooklyn streetlights, because they could totally do that now and Steve was very, very glad to be back.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>We're coming up on the first anniversary of Steve's character assassination by those nassty, nassty Endgame creatorsses, so maybe we can celebrate with one of the many ways the fandom has evolved, in its far superior wisdom, to redeem it: the lovely "Old!Steve is a Skrull!" theory.</p><p>I hope this also gives us some sorely needed warm fuzzies what with everything going on these days across the globe.</p><p>Please do point out any errors or other silly things in this one.  Been wrestling with ye olde writer's block over it so long (butit'snoteventhreethousandwordslongiknowrite) and these two are my favoritest star-crossed couple ever that I just kinda wanted to fire it off before the inner censor could catch up to me again.  Which reminds me... *scampers*</p></blockquote></div></div>
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